ZX Spectrum is coming back as a Bluetooth keyboard

Retro gaming in future tech

It's time to don your nostalgia hat as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit personal home computer originally released in the UK in 1982, is being resurrected in the form a Bluetooth keyboard.

Mobile games company Elite Systems has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise £60,000 ($98,800, AU$111,750) by January 31.

The new Sinclair ZX Spectrum will consist of a Bluetooth keyboard housed in a reproduction ZX 48K case. Initially for use with iOS, support for Android and Windows phones and tablets is in the works.

Owners will be able to play an array of ZX games that can be downloaded as apps from the iTunes App Store, Google Play, the Amazon App Store and the Windows Store. It will also be backwards compatible with existing ZX Spectrum apps.

In production

Elite first announced its intention to relaunch the ZX Spectrum for a generation of nostalgic gamers in 2011. It has since been granted a licence to use the ZX Spectrum registered trademark and to replicate the form-factor of the 48K Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

The company has already developed a functional prototype, and is now preparing for the physical prototype, which will have authentic rubber-key play-control. If there is sufficient demand, the company will then launch an initial production run of 1,000 units.

Elite Systems co-founder Steve Wilcox said: "It's anticipated that in the region of half of the £60,000 initial goal which we have set for this appeal will be expended upon the first 1,000 production units.

"This represents the single biggest pre-release cost (and risk) associated with the Bluetooth ZX Spectrum. It is a cost (and risk) to which we will not commit until the demand for the Bluetooth ZX Spectrum is known."

Elite hopes to bring the Bluetooth ZX Spectrum into production by the Spring of 2014.